The Date
by harrypotterfangirl2010
Summary: Tonks has finally gotten Lupin to take her out on a date, except she vastly misjudges what he finds 'sexy' and ends up disappointed...


**Enjoy guy! Feedback welcome! And obviously I don't own anything or I'd be writing T/L-centric novels and living in a mansion in England and not just indulging in facfic.**

"That what you're wearing?" Sirius Black asked his cousin Nymphodora Tonks. After months of pursuing him doggedly, his long-time friend Remus Lupin had agreed to take her out on a date. She was wearing a slinky black skirt that split up to the thigh, black leather corset-style top and strappy black high-heeled sandals. It was very sexy and nothing like the torn jeans and t-shirts that she usually wore.

"Yes, what of it?" Tonks asked Sirius. "D'you think it's sexy enough?"

"I think it's far too sexy for Remus," Sirius said. "He won't know what to do with himself."

"That's the point. I want to blow his mind."

Sirius chuckled at that. The outfit wasn't very Tonks-ish, but the attitude sure was. She knew what she wanted and went the most direct route after it. Except the problem was that it was too sexy, too obvious for the bookish Lupin. He preferred subtlety. "He'll get nervous," Sirius explained – or, rather, _tried_ to explain. "You're better off wearing something more demure."

Tonks threw her head back defiantly. "I think I know what men like better than you," she said.

"Don't say I didn't warn you," Sirius replied. She flashed him a cheeky grin for his troubles.

A few minutes later, Lupin came down the stairs. "Tonks, I'm ready whenever you – " He stopped dead when he saw what she was wearing. There was no doubt that she was smoking hot; the top pushed up her breasts, spilling out her cleavage, and the shirt showed of her long, toned legs. But he wasn't sure he liked it. Sure, he didn't think much of the torn jeans and t-shirts that she usually wore, but he was beginning to get used to it and accept it as part of her personality. But this getup, sexy though it was, looked unnatural, overdone. He would rather have exposed her skin gradually and not have her flaunt her bare flesh in his face. He felt like he ought to be pawing her. "You look nice," he managed.

Tonks beamed at the compliment, not realising how strained it was. "Shall we go?" she asked.

He nodded. He'd made reservations at a restaurant at Hogsmead. It meant they would have to Appirate, which she was kind of disappointed by; her dad had taught her how to drive, and she was hoping she would have that time alone with him before they got to the restaurant.

But it turned out to be quite a nice place that she'd never been before. "I found out the Weasley twins knew every places in Hogsmead as well as every place in Hog_warts_," he said with a grin. "This was only in their fourth year, too. And the kicker is that the reason they were able to sneak around the place so much is because of a map _I_ helped design."

"Really?" she asked. "I can't see you as the kind of person who designs map that helps people sneak around," she said.

He laughed at that. "I was James and Sirius's best friend, remember," he reminded her. "I wasn't entirely innocent of wrongdoing."

"Do you still miss him? James, I mean."

"All the time. Sometimes I look at Harry and think about what James and the rest of us were up to at that age," he admitted.

"I'm sorry. It must be tough."

"I appreciate that, but I don't feel like talking about sad stuff tonight." He reached over and took her hands in his. She felt the scars on his hand and stroked them questioningly. "So much for that idea," he said ruefully. "I had to be kept isolated before Wolfsbane was invented," he said simply. "In the absence of anyone else to bite or scratch, I bit and scratched myself a lot."

"That's terrible!" she said. "Merlin, you must have hurt yourself so much..."

He was pleasantly surprised by her reaction. Most people were horrified by the injuries he was capable of inflicting on himself in the absence of anyone else to hurt; it was the 'anyone else' that tended to both them more than the 'himself' part of it. Tonks, on the other hand, seemed more concerned with his own hurt. "I heal pretty easily," he said.

"But still – a bite is a bite – it can't have been _completely_ painless," she said sympathetically. She was rewarded with a genuine and rather personal smile from him.

"That means a lot," he said softly. "Not many people aren't disgusted by me."

She squeezed his hands. "I would have thought that pestering you to take me out was a good sign that I'm not disgusted by you," she said.

"I know that," he said. "Look, do you want to go for a walk after?"

"I'd like that," she said, feeling suddenly shy. A walk was much better than a drive. A walk meant they could hold hands.

They finished up dinner and Lupin led her out the restaurant. Impulsively, he groped for her hand, threading his fingers through hers. Holding hands was OK, he figured, they had already done it in the restaurant. And he didn't dare touch her any other way, given what she was wearing, he figured he couldn't do it without touching her in what he felt would be an inappropriate way.

Without meaning to, he found himself leading her to the Shrieking Shack. "Oooh, this place is supposed to be haunted," she said.

"It's not," he said. "That was all just me. Remember how I said I had to be isolated? That was where. I don't know if you know this, but the Whomping Willow was planted the year I started Hogwarts. It was actually planted _because_ of me. There's a tunnel that leads between it and the Shrieking Shack. Because I had no-one to bite, I bit myself," he explained again.

"That must have been awful for you. You must have been so lonely..."

There was something about the way she said that that made him smile. She seemed genuinely concerned about his pain and loneliness and not the least bit concerned that that pain and loneliness had been caused by him being a werewolf. "I dealt. Though I had three friends – well, two, really," he added, thinking that Peter didn't count, "who were willing to turn themselves into illegal Animagi for me. Not many people would do that for a friend, let alone a friend who's a half-breed."

He sounded a little bitter, and the more he learnt about him, the more she understood that he had ever reason to be far more bitter than he was. "It's so unfair," she said. "People are so afraid of werewolves but it's such a vicious cycle – people try to banish what they're afraid of rather than try to understand it, and it makes the banished turn in on themselves and exacerbate the situation. Maybe if this Greyback guy had been shown some tolerance he never would have become what he was."

Her enthusiasm was endearing, if somewhat misplaced. "I doubt it, love. Greyback is like the werewolf equivalent of Voldermort. He was born mean. But you're on the right track. So much of the bad stuff in the world has been made worse by fear and ignorance."

She beamed. "What did you call me?" she asked.

"Oh, love?" he asked. "Sorry. You hate Nymphodora and I don't like calling you Tonks, given this is a date, and I didn't know what else to call you. Slip of the tongue."

"You can call me Dora if you want to," she said shyly. "It's what mum and dad call me. But love is fine, too."

"Dora it is, then," he said, and she was disappointed that he had chosen it over continuing to call her 'love'. But she was far from disappointed when he leaned in to kiss her. He was a good kisser, his tongue gentle but just a little persistent in her mouth, running over her teeth, searching out for hers. She kissed him back eagerly and pushed her body into his, hoping he would take the hint and wrap his arm around her waist, her bare back where the top didn't meet the skirt.

Instead, he pulled away after doing nothing but holding her hands. He didn't like how close she had been to him while she was wearing so little. She was providing too much temptation with that damn svelte, young body of hers that was only half-dressed and he didn't want to give into temptation. "I think we should head back," he suggested huskily.

"OK," she said in a small voice, deeply disappointed that he had apparently gone cold on her. Was it something she had said or done?

So they Appirated back to Grimmauld Place. "How did it go?" Sirius asked her when Lupin quickly made his way to his room to avoid the same question.

"S'OK," she mumbled.

Sirius grinned at that. "So it didn't go as well as you'd hoped?" he asked. She glowered at him. "I told you he wouldn't like the outfit."

"He liked it enough to hold my hand and kiss me... and take me to the Shrieking Shack," she retorted defiantly.

That surprised Sirius; it was unlike Lupin to share his life like that. "I didn't realise you hit it off that well," he said.

Tonks shrugged like it was no surprise to _her_ that Lupin would take to her if only he gave her the chance. "He let it slip a little what he suffered as a werewolf," she said "I think he was pleasantly surprised that I didn't care. And I don't," she added defiantly.

"I kind of figured that when you pestered him for months to take you out," Sirius said. "Alright, so he liked you enough to take you to the Shrieking Shack and kiss you. Then what happened?"

She shrugged. "I dunno. I thought he could do with some encouragement so I, uh, hugged him – "

"Hugged him or threw yourself at him?" Sirius asked, knowing how upfront Tonks could be when she wanted something. He saw her squirm and took her actions to be closer to the latter. "Well, of course he cut it short," Sirius said. "He had no idea what he was supposed to do. You didn't leave him any room to touch you."

"I did too! Why do you think I wore this!"

"That's exactly my point, Tonks. You left him no room to touch you in a way that he felt wasn't inappropriate – either bare skin or – er – well, you get the idea," he said. He adored Tonks, but as aware that she was nonetheless a junior family member, and didn't care to refer to her ass or breasts. "You'd've been far better off wearing that punk junk you love so much. Or better yet, the stuff you wear on the weekends when you're not trying so hard to be The Rebellious Black. You scrub up quite nicely."

She glowered at him. She _liked_ that 'punk junk', precisely because it distinguished her from both her mother and Sirius and her aunts. "He wouldn't have asked me out if he didn't like me," she insisted stubbornly. "You have no idea what you're talking about. Just you wait. He'll ask me out again in no time."

But he didn't. More than two weeks passed and Lupin seemed to be making a concerted effort to avoid her without _looking_ like he was avoiding her. And it wasn't hard. She worked long hours during the week, including nights and some weekends, and it wasn't hard for him to conveniently find things to do when she _was_ at Grimmauld Place. She had begun to lose hope of him ever asking her out when she passed him in the recently-fully-cleaned sitting room, books and papers piled everywhere. "What you doing?" she asked him.

"A little bit of everything," he said. "Creating a lesson plan for Harry and his DA. Going over every bit of information I can find on unassimilated werewolves. Doing some pleasure reading when that gets boring."

She inspected the stack of books and papers he had with him. "It all looks boring to me," she informed him.

He smiled. "You didn't have to fight for your right to have an education," he admonished her gently. "It tends to make you crave every bit of knowledge you can get your hands on."

"Sorry, I wasn't thinking."

"It's fine." He glanced up at her, then took a longer look then he'd intended when he saw what she was wearing, figure-hugging – but not skintight – jeans that were actually whole and a fluffy light blue jumper. "I like that outfit," he said, a tough of an approving tone in his voice. Generally, he preferred what she wore when she was just hanging out at Grimmauld Place to anything else he had seen – either the torn punky stuff that she wore to work or the flashy, sexy black thing she had worn on their date – largely because he suspected it was what she wore when she felt she had nothing to prove.

"Thanks," she said.

"You wore it on your second weekend here," he commented idly.

Needless to say, she was surprised at that. "How do you remember?" she asked.

He found himself blushing, and he hardly ever blushed – when you had the life he did, few things phased you by his age. "I remember thinking how cute you looked, and then feeling like a dirty old man for thinking that."

Pleased by his comment, she sat down, and was even more pleased when he moved his books and paper out of the way and focused his attention entirely on her. "You're only thirteen years old than me," she protested. "Fleur's eight years younger than Bill, _and_ she's only eighteen. I'm twenty-three. Everyone knows that the same age gap grows less significant the older two people get."

He grinned. "I'll give you that one," he conceded. Delighted by his response, Tonks sat down next to him. "D'you mind an unsolicited opinion from someone who's only six years younger than your mum?" he asked.

Tonks's eyes went wide at that. "You are not!" she said.

"She was Head Girl in my first year," he said. "My second-favourite Head Girl after Lily, actually. I told you that when we first met. You probably forgot."

Tonks had to admit, that was entirely likely. There was something a bit gross about him having been at school with her _mother_, and since she had been attracted to him from the word go, it was very possible that she had conveniently forgotten that fact. But at least he wasn't old enough to be _her_ father – at least not by socially acceptable standards. "Opinion away," she said.

"I think you dress the way you dress as a way of distinguishing yourself," he said. "You want something that makes you stand out from your mum and Sirius's rebellion and your aunt's respectability – well, at least Narcissa's," he added, although Bellatrix still had her supporters among the hard-core purebloods. "I think you try too hard at being the punk one, or the overtly sexy one, when I think you're pretty damn special the way you are right now."

His words had such a strong ring of truth to them – even a truth that she hadn't considered consciously – that she was dumbstruck for a moment. Then, "I was always Andromeda's daughter, or Narcissa's niece," she admitted. "I _liked_ being known for myself."

"But you're only known by some narrow definition," Lupin pointed out patiently. "That's not really being known for yourself. This – the way you are here – _that's_ being known for yourself. You didn't need to try so hard around me, you know. I like you as you are right now. I was first attracted to you as you are right now."

"That's what Sirius said," Tonks mumbled. "He said you didn't like what I was wearing when you took me out."

"I liked it well enough," he said. "But I like _you_ and that wasn't _you_. I'd've been happy if you had worn what you're wearing now."

"Why?" she asked. "I don't understand. I thought you'd find it sexy. I thought it was an open invitation to touch me."

"I didn't _want_ an open invitation to touch you, love. I wanted to be able to put my hands on your waist without feeling like I was pawing you." Tentatively, he reached out for her and she leaned into him. He wrapped his arm casually around her shoulders, safely buffeted by her jumper. "You smell nice," he murmered, burying his face in her hair. He'd always been partial to the smell of vanilla.

"It's what I always wear. If I'd known that I wouldn't have worn what I did when you took me out."

"Jasmine's got quite a strong smell," he explained. "Because I've got such a strong sense of smell, it's really overpowering for me. I prefer more subtle scents." He chuckled ruefully. "You another example of how I like you much better as yourself then I do when you're trying to appeal to some arbitrary standard of male taste."

"Whoops."

"That's a good way of putting it." He kissed the top of her head. "Don't try so hard, OK, love? I'm nervous enough as it is by your age and you being a Black. You make it worse by taking away all your naturalness."

She wanted to ask him to kiss her again, but instinct told her that this came under the category of 'unnatural'; he would rather wait until the right moment to kiss her. Instead she leaned back against him and let him play with her hair. They chatted easily for half an hour and weather by accident or design on his part, she found herself snuggled deeper and deeper in his arms, tracing the scars on them idly. To her, the scars were testimony to his integrity that he would rather be isolated and bite himself than expose his werewolf nature to anyone else. "I think they're beautiful," she said when he asked her why she was doing it.

"I think you're beautiful."He nuzzled her neck briefly, his lips running across her bare skin, and she shivered at the sensation. She reached for her hand and gripped it. Somehow he was cupping her chin and turning her around so she was facing him and his lips were gently on hers, his tongue running the length of them before flicking into her mouth with the same gentleness. She remembered what he'd said about liking her being herself, and rather than pushed herself into him, she slowly sank deeper into his embrace. He wrapped his arm around her fully-clothed back and she could feel the heat of his skin seeking through her clothes and she understood what he meant about subtlety. There was something far sexier about feeling his body heat through her clothes than having his hands all over her bare skin.

"Remus," she whispered as he rain his mouth across her face and neck.

"Isn't this much better?" he murmured huskily.

"Mmm-hmmm." He moved his mouth back up to hers to kiss her again and she wrapped her arms around his neck. God, this felt so good. She wriggled against him slightly, enjoying the feel of his body against her. "Remus, don't stop..."

"Don't stop what?" came a voice from the hall. Tonks looked up, and her changeling eyes – currently green – met his teasing grey ones. He hadn't needed to ask 'what', he had known exactly what was going on and had taken great delight in needling his cousin by interrupting something she'd been thinking about for weeks.

"Sirius!" she yelled at him. "You shit!"

"Told you he preferred you more natural," Sirius said smugly.

"Sirius..." Lupin half-growled.

Sirius got the point. Teasing his cousin was one thing; getting on Lupin's nerves over a girl was another. "Sorry," he mumbled, retreating backwards out the door, but not before a 'good onya, mate'.

"Sorry about that," Lupin said, and for a second, she thought Lupin was going to take the interruption as a broken moment. But instead he kissed her again in a 'moment' that last several minutes. "I, uh, don't suppose you want to come up to my room after dinner? Not like that, I mean," he added, blushing slightly. "I just want to be with you without being interrupted."

"I'd like that," she said breathlessly.


End file.
